Citroen AMI review _ Driving the new electric city car, at 28mph _ Autocar

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello and welcome to a sensible no-nonsense car review of well this is not a car this is a quadricycle which means that depending on where you live if you live in bits of mainland europe you can drive it at 14 years old without a license in the uk the same does not apply you need a driving license and to be 17 but it does not conform to normal car conventions it's called the citroen ami it's left hand drive only to kind of explain uh more about it i think i'll pull over give you a little walk around of the vehicle which um i don't think will take very long because it is two and a half meters long it's about a meter and a half wide it weighs 485 kilograms including the battery they also quite a weight without the battery i don't know why because you're not gonna you're not going to need it this panel on the front here is exactly the same as on this panel on the back there these quarter panels are identical these doors are identical which means that this one here for the passenger opens that way and then around on the other side of the vehicle my side of the vehicle driver's side of the vehicle it opens in what they used to call but don't like to anymore suicide door fashion there's two cv styley windows it's been a long time since i was in this two cv but basically they open like that well that's your air conditioning there is a vast glass area actually it's about 50 of the interior surfaces are glass including our standard a glass roof like that so these panels all sit over a steel space frame chassis there are trailing arms at the back there's mcpherson struts at the front there's a five and a half kilowatt hour battery which is at the back somewhere it's but it's front wheel drive the motor and stuff is at the front and if you want to charge it your choice is to plug it into the mains or nothing else but it's got a two pin continental european plug that they put an adapter on this does not charge at a very fast rate now it takes around three and a half hours to charge the ami's battery off the mains and it's a five and a half kilowatt hour battery so you can't really charge it any faster than that inside it is basic there is nothing behind you the rear window doesn't open the passenger seat is fixed and luggage then goes in the passenger footwell or on what's affectionately known in britain as the curry hook but it is bright airy and relatively spacious in here there are fabric tabs to open the doors and it's the work of a moment to remove the orange boxes in the dash and replace them with another color your infotainment is provided by your smartphone and there is a single speed quite noisy single speed fan and heater there's a conventional handbreaker drive neutral and reverse gear selector and a big panoramic view out of the front so let's go and so there you have the technical details such as such as they are what else do you need to know well the range is apparently 70 kilometers and it will do up to 28 miles an hour so there are places you can't take it there are a lot of dual carriageways and things like that that you you simply cannot go because you will not be allowed to and i don't know if you heard that laughter of the bystander that i just drove past that is also something that you would experience quite a lot with the ami because it does get noticed and people think what on earth is that why is it so small why isn't it making any noise and why is there a grown man driving what appears to be a toy car but well all right let's do the proper road test thing what's it like i'm gonna have to turn the fan back on in a minute or open my window problem with turning the fan on and talking to you is it's that loud so let's go for the window instead that's quite cool isn't it i do quite like that simplicity and i like simple cars i like small cars i like narrow cars got like electric cars so the fact that these this is all of these things should make it appeal quite a lot you can think of it as a rival to the renault twizy i would guess only this keeps you warmer and drier but it is not i don't think quite as much fun and it is not it's not as fast that's now 45 kilometers an hour i am a mobile traffic jam in an urban area what's remarkable about it's two and a half meter length it has a ridiculous turning circle it's like five meters or something it's it's unbelievably short right is it fast wheel spin 16 kilometers now 21 kilometers now 25 30 kph we are going uphill slightly to its credit 38 39 40 kmh 44. so unlike renault twizy it is front wheel drive and the twizy is narrower lighter feels sparkier in a straight line than this and i think really what they say is would you rather your teenage child was riding a scooter or would you rather your teenage child was driving something like this with a semblance of steel cage around them and a three-point seat belt and without the ability to filter through traffic which should should prove a little bit safer than a scooter it's quite loud isn't it on bad surfaces it's really loud and blitzing faster police car but maximum volume maximum speed maximum speed is not very fast okay so the proper road testy bit well the steering turns the wheels it's unassisted it's quite agile it wants to turn you can pick a path between sort of those little uh road working lumps and bumps it's not without entertainment the ride is not exactly really smooth it's got mcpherson struts at the front it's got trailing arms at the back it has coilover uh of course springs and uh conventional dampers but the truth of the matter is that a car with a body this light it's hard to make them to ride really well over speed ramps and things just because the body's so light it gets kicked off of line very easily with a heavy body it's easier to create a car that rides lumps and bumps comfortably what it does have is good body control and decent enough agility doesn't seem to have loads of grip but that is not its not its thing is it and so the question is should you buy one well in the uk it's by no means guaranteed that you will be able to citroen thinks that it will be available in the uk that left-hand drive won't be that much of a drawback because you know what are you going to be passing after all and in france at the minute you can buy it you can put a deposit down and then your lease agreement every month is like 20 euros a month over a four year lease but if you want to buy one outright it's about six grand so that's the kind of money you are talking about which gets you all the scooter in the world all the used car in the world so instead if you consider it as something that might be available on a car share scheme or that would be a third car or second car in a in a family for running to the running to the station or running to collagen or something like that and you know i can see where it has its has its place it's it's quite good fun i am quite enjoying it apart from being stared at i'm not totally sure it's going to change the world but i'm rather glad i'm rather glad it exists youhello and welcome to a sensible no-nonsense car review of well this is not a car this is a quadricycle which means that depending on where you live if you live in bits of mainland europe you can drive it at 14 years old without a license in the uk the same does not apply you need a driving license and to be 17 but it does not conform to normal car conventions it's called the citroen ami it's left hand drive only to kind of explain uh more about it i think i'll pull over give you a little walk around of the vehicle which um i don't think will take very long because it is two and a half meters long it's about a meter and a half wide it weighs 485 kilograms including the battery they also quite a weight without the battery i don't know why because you're not gonna you're not going to need it this panel on the front here is exactly the same as on this panel on the back there these quarter panels are identical these doors are identical which means that this one here for the passenger opens that way and then around on the other side of the vehicle my side of the vehicle driver's side of the vehicle it opens in what they used to call but don't like to anymore suicide door fashion there's two cv styley windows it's been a long time since i was in this two cv but basically they open like that well that's your air conditioning there is a vast glass area actually it's about 50 of the interior surfaces are glass including our standard a glass roof like that so these panels all sit over a steel space frame chassis there are trailing arms at the back there's mcpherson struts at the front there's a five and a half kilowatt hour battery which is at the back somewhere it's but it's front wheel drive the motor and stuff is at the front and if you want to charge it your choice is to plug it into the mains or nothing else but it's got a two pin continental european plug that they put an adapter on this does not charge at a very fast rate now it takes around three and a half hours to charge the ami's battery off the mains and it's a five and a half kilowatt hour battery so you can't really charge it any faster than that inside it is basic there is nothing behind you the rear window doesn't open the passenger seat is fixed and luggage then goes in the passenger footwell or on what's affectionately known in britain as the curry hook but it is bright airy and relatively spacious in here there are fabric tabs to open the doors and it's the work of a moment to remove the orange boxes in the dash and replace them with another color your infotainment is provided by your smartphone and there is a single speed quite noisy single speed fan and heater there's a conventional handbreaker drive neutral and reverse gear selector and a big panoramic view out of the front so let's go and so there you have the technical details such as such as they are what else do you need to know well the range is apparently 70 kilometers and it will do up to 28 miles an hour so there are places you can't take it there are a lot of dual carriageways and things like that that you you simply cannot go because you will not be allowed to and i don't know if you heard that laughter of the bystander that i just drove past that is also something that you would experience quite a lot with the ami because it does get noticed and people think what on earth is that why is it so small why isn't it making any noise and why is there a grown man driving what appears to be a toy car but well all right let's do the proper road test thing what's it like i'm gonna have to turn the fan back on in a minute or open my window problem with turning the fan on and talking to you is it's that loud so let's go for the window instead that's quite cool isn't it i do quite like that simplicity and i like simple cars i like small cars i like narrow cars got like electric cars so the fact that these this is all of these things should make it appeal quite a lot you can think of it as a rival to the renault twizy i would guess only this keeps you warmer and drier but it is not i don't think quite as much fun and it is not it's not as fast that's now 45 kilometers an hour i am a mobile traffic jam in an urban area what's remarkable about it's two and a half meter length it has a ridiculous turning circle it's like five meters or something it's it's unbelievably short right is it fast wheel spin 16 kilometers now 21 kilometers now 25 30 kph we are going uphill slightly to its credit 38 39 40 kmh 44. so unlike renault twizy it is front wheel drive and the twizy is narrower lighter feels sparkier in a straight line than this and i think really what they say is would you rather your teenage child was riding a scooter or would you rather your teenage child was driving something like this with a semblance of steel cage around them and a three-point seat belt and without the ability to filter through traffic which should should prove a little bit safer than a scooter it's quite loud isn't it on bad surfaces it's really loud and blitzing faster police car but maximum volume maximum speed maximum speed is not very fast okay so the proper road testy bit well the steering turns the wheels it's unassisted it's quite agile it wants to turn you can pick a path between sort of those little uh road working lumps and bumps it's not without entertainment the ride is not exactly really smooth it's got mcpherson struts at the front it's got trailing arms at the back it has coilover uh of course springs and uh conventional dampers but the truth of the matter is that a car with a body this light it's hard to make them to ride really well over speed ramps and things just because the body's so light it gets kicked off of line very easily with a heavy body it's easier to create a car that rides lumps and bumps comfortably what it does have is good body control and decent enough agility doesn't seem to have loads of grip but that is not its not its thing is it and so the question is should you buy one well in the uk it's by no means guaranteed that you will be able to citroen thinks that it will be available in the uk that left-hand drive won't be that much of a drawback because you know what are you going to be passing after all and in france at the minute you can buy it you can put a deposit down and then your lease agreement every month is like 20 euros a month over a four year lease but if you want to buy one outright it's about six grand so that's the kind of money you are talking about which gets you all the scooter in the world all the used car in the world so instead if you consider it as something that might be available on a car share scheme or that would be a third car or second car in a in a family for running to the running to the station or running to collagen or something like that and you know i can see where it has its has its place it's it's quite good fun i am quite enjoying it apart from being stared at i'm not totally sure it's going to change the world but i'm rather glad i'm rather glad it exists you\n"